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Psalms 59
Deliver Me From My Enemies, My God
1Deliver me from my enemies, O my God;
protect me from those who rise up against me; 2 deliver me from those who work evil,
and save me from bloodthirsty men.
3 For behold, they lie in wait for my life;
fierce men stir up strife against me.
For no transgression or sin of mine, O LORD, 4 for no fault of mine, they run and make ready.
Awake, come to meet me, and see! 5 You, LORD God of hosts, are God of Israel.
Rouse yourself to punish all the nations;
spare none of those who treacherously plot evil. Selah
6 Each evening they come back,
howling like dogs
and prowling about the city. 7 There they are, bellowing with their mouths
with swords in their lips—
for “Who,”
they think, “will hear us”?
8 But you, O LORD, laugh at them;
you hold all the nations in derision. 9 O my Strength, I will watch for you,
for you, O God, are my fortress. 10 My God in his steadfast love will meet me;
God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.
11 Kill them not, lest my people forget;
make them totter by your power and bring them down,
O Lord, our shield! 12 For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips,
let them be trapped in their pride.
For the cursing and lies that they utter, 13 consume them in wrath;
consume them till they are no more,
that they may know that God rules over Jacob
to the ends of the earth. Selah
14 Each evening they come back,
howling like dogs
and prowling about the city. 15 They wander about for food
and growl if they do not get their fill.
16 But I will sing of your strength;
I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
and a refuge in the day of my distress. 17 O my Strength, I will sing praises to you,
for you, O God, are my fortress,
the God who shows me steadfast love.
Jeremiah 22
A Warning to Judah’s Kings
1 Thus says the LORD: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, 2 and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. 3 Thus says the LORD: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. 4 For if you will indeed obey this word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people. 5 But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation.A Warning about the Palace
6 For thus says the LORD concerning the house of the king of Judah:“‘You are like Gilead to me,
like the summit of Lebanon,
yet surely I will make you a desert,
an uninhabited city. 7 I will prepare destroyers against you,
each with his weapons,
and they shall cut down your choicest cedars
and cast them into the fire. 8 “‘And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, “Why has the LORD dealt thus with this great city”?
9 And they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and worshiped other gods and served them.”’”
A Warning about Shallum
10 Weep not for him who is dead,
nor grieve for him,
but weep bitterly for him who goes away,
for he shall return no more
to see his native land. 11 For thus says the LORD concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went away from this place: “He shall return here no more, 12 but in the place where they have carried him captive, there shall he die, and he shall never see this land again.”
A Warning about Jehoiakim
13 “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
and his upper rooms by injustice,
who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing
and does not give him his wages, 14 who says, ‘I will build myself a great house
with spacious upper rooms,’
who cuts out windows for it,
paneling it with cedar
and painting it with vermilion. 15 Do you think you are a king
because you compete in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him. 16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
then it was well.
Is not this to know me?
declares the LORD. 17 But you have eyes and heart
only for your dishonest gain,
for shedding innocent blood,
and for practicing oppression and violence.”
18 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
“They shall not lament for him, saying,
‘Ah, my brother!’ or ‘Ah, sister!’
They shall not lament for him, saying,
‘Ah, lord!’ or ‘Ah, his majesty!’ 19 With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried,
dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”
20 “Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,
and lift up your voice in Bashan;
cry out from Abarim,
for all your lovers are destroyed. 21 I spoke to you in your prosperity,
but you said, ‘I will not listen.’
This has been your way from your youth,
that you have not obeyed my voice. 22 The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds,
and your lovers shall go into captivity;
then you will be ashamed and confounded
because of all your evil. 23 O inhabitant of Lebanon,
nested among the cedars,
how you will be pitied when pangs come upon you,
pain as of a woman in labor!”
A Warning to Coniah
24 “As I live, declares the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off 25 and give you into the hand of those who seek your life, into the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. 27 But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.”28 Is this man Coniah a despised, broken pot,
a vessel no one cares for?
Why are he and his children hurled and cast
into a land that they do not know? 29 O land, land, land,
hear the word of the LORD! 30 Thus says the LORD:
“Write this man down as childless,
a man who shall not succeed in his days,
for none of his offspring shall succeed
in sitting on the throne of David
and ruling again in Judah.”
Job 22
Eliphaz Accuses and Exhorts Job
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:2 “Can a man be profitable to God?
Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself. 3 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right,
or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless? 4 Is it for your fear of him that he reproves you
and enters into judgment with you? 5 Is not your evil abundant?
There is no end to your iniquities. 6 For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing
and stripped the naked of their clothing. 7 You have given no water to the weary to drink,
and you have withheld bread from the hungry. 8 The man with power possessed the land,
and the favored man lived in it. 9 You have sent widows away empty,
and the arms of the fatherless were crushed. 10 Therefore snares are all around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you, 11 or darkness, so that you cannot see,
and a flood of water covers you.
12 “Is not God high in the heavens?
See the highest stars, how lofty they are! 13 But you say, ‘What does God know?
Can he judge through the deep darkness? 14 Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see,
and he walks on the vault of heaven.’ 15 Will you keep to the old way
that wicked men have trod? 16 They were snatched away before their time;
their foundation was washed away. 17 They said to God, ‘Depart from us,’
and ‘What can the Almighty do to us?’ 18 Yet he filled their houses with good things—
but the counsel of the wicked is far from me. 19 The righteous see it and are glad;
the innocent one mocks at them, 20 saying, ‘Surely our adversaries are cut off,
and what they left the fire has consumed.’
21 “Agree with God, and be at peace;
thereby good will come to you. 22 Receive instruction from his mouth,
and lay up his words in your heart. 23 If you return to the Almighty you will be built up;
if you remove injustice far from your tents, 24 if you lay gold in the dust,
and gold of Ophir among the stones of the torrent-bed, 25 then the Almighty will be your gold
and your precious silver. 26 For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty
and lift up your face to God. 27 You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you,
and you will pay your vows. 28 You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you,
and light will shine on your ways. 29 For when they are humbled you say, ‘It is because of pride’;
but he saves the lowly. 30 He delivers even the one who is not innocent,
who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”
Acts 13
Paul’s First Missionary Journey Begins
1 Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.On Cyprus
4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them. 6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. 7 He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. 9 But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.
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